Why I am self-publishing on Amazon

Late last year, while we were under lockdown, to my mild surprise I wrote a 39000-word novella.

The fact that it was not my intention to produce anything near that length perhaps explains why I didn't get cold feet halfway through and abandon the project. There was no self-imposed weight of expectation pressing down on me; only the desire to build upon the foundations of an unfinished short story, penned over a decade ago. 'A couple of days work,' I thought.

Having looked over the original draft, a few things were immediately apparent: The protagonist needed an overhaul. It was not enough for him to be an alienated individual. He needed to be a true outsider – an immigrant to the United Kingdom. Furthermore, he needed to originate from the same place as the antagonist - an inveterate nationalist named Yusuf Al-Makari who regards all non-Egyptians with disdain.

The narrative also needed restructuring. This resulted in me dragging paragraphs between a pair of side-by-side OpenOffice documents until I arrived at a semblance of a structure. In this new form, the event that opened the original story was relegated to the beginning of the fifth and final chapter.

A section that I had originally intended as a diversion, lasting no more than a few paragraphs, was extended into what I believe to be the longest chapter in the book; one that defines how the protagonist responds to domineering personalities, setting the stage for his confrontation with a dangerous man who is seeking to incorporate him into his grand design.

Over the years, I had periodically added notes to the bottom of the original draft. These needed to be introduced into the core text. One of these ideas formed part of the new opening chapter for the story, which in turn informs the ending.

Another welcome personal development, that has arisen naturally as a result of ten more years of living, is that I have become less timid. I used to be terribly concerned by the possibility that something that I wrote might cause offence. I accept now that, when you venture into contentious territory, it is inevitable that you will upset somebody. In fact, in [current year], you don't even need to be contentious. To see this point illustrated in real time, one needs only turn focus on the bucket of crabs that is the Young Adult scene. The nesting doll of dramas that have recently plagued this profitable literary sub-genre are perhaps best summarised by referencing the book of Genesis, replacing all the Biblical names with the name of a YA, author, editor, specialist retailer, etc, and any incidence of the word 'begat' with the word 'cancelled.'

The focus of my novella is an archaic, animistic religion that has been pushed into the margins by the relentless march of Arahamism. In the near contemporary era in which the story takes place, this fringe sect has been embraced by political dissidents and is being used to achieve political ends. This has made its leaders a target for assassination by those who wish to remain in power.

The story unfolds predominately in London, in the binary world of immigrants who have been absorbed into the social fabric of the city, but whose lives remain divided between their day to day existence and any stake they have in the situation in their native countries.

This was a creative decision, rather than an attempt at shoehorning in some diversity. It was inspired by the Zimbabwean community in my home town, many of whom are political dissidents who have fled the civil turmoil of their home nation because it was too dangerous for them to stay. I would imagine that, even removing yourself to England and beginning a new life there, doesn't completely shut the door on the past. There are some things that will follow you wherever you go. Certainly this is the case for both the antagonist and the protagonist in my book.

While what I have described might sound like the bare bones of a thriller, the story is more a journey of self-discovery taken by the main character, as he breaks free from the expectations and ideologies of more forceful personalities, and attempts to find his own way through life. Part and parcel of that journey is making peace with the fact there is a price to pay for living your own truth, as well as accepting that there will always remain powerful external forces that you would rather not be involved with, but from which you can never escape.

Having written and edited the novella, I sent it to a couple of publishers who are open to the idea of printing stories of this length. The responses were lukewarm. Overlooking, for a moment, any issues with the quality of the prose and the storytelling, I find it hard to imagine that an oddity like this would ever find a home with a mainstream publisher. The question then became: “Well, what do I do with it?”

These past five years I have been sending off short stories, along with the occasional poem, to print and online journals. I've had moderate success. Three or four times a year something will be accepted. I've had work published on websites, in print magazines and incorporated into live events. Last year I made some really quite decent money from the Alfred Hitchcock Mystery Magazine.  Another story – an attempt at writing Arabic science fiction - published in Collateral (an online journal that focuses on the impact of war and conflict on soldiers and civilians) was nominated for Pushcart prize.

Despite these little victories, a number of factors have made this ongoing process feel like treading water: As  someone who unintentionally wrote 39000 words while finishing off a short story, you can imagine that I do not enjoy being beholden to a word count. Nor do I relish having the editorial policy of a journal extending into my creative process and influencing what I write about, or how I write it. I dislike self censorship and, from here-on, I will not do that.

I don't like the stop and start momentum that arises from submitting work, waiting months and sometimes in excess of a year for a response (my record is 19 months) and then, having been rejected, rewriting the piece and sending it out again. It has become a deepening rut where, occasionally, my spinning wheels will gain a modicum of traction. While I harbour no ambitions in regard to carving out a career as a writer, and realistically lack both the ability and the broad appeal to do so, I do still want there to be progression if only for the sake of variety. I want to feel as if there is scenery scrolling past, as opposed to being bogged down in the doldrums.

Furthermore, I want to begin writing under a pseudonym (an anagram of my real name) so it makes sense to draw a line under the past and begin again. This is the first time in half a decade where I have no work out for submission and it feels liberating.

What I want to do is to write longform pieces, publish them at the drop of a hat (which entails letting go of what I have written) and then immediately move onto to the next idea. To achieve that end, I need to find a way of side-stepping gatekeepers and taking more responsibility, in terms how my work is presented and promoted.

As luck would have it, there is a massive self-publishing resource encamped on the internet; one that offers a relatively good deal to writers who realistically aren't going to get a foot in the door with legacy publishers.

My plan, subject to change, is that in mid-late June, I am going to put my novella up on Amazon as an e-book for Kindle. Amazon also provide a print on demand service, but I have no idea of what the quality of their paperbacks is like, or whether they represent good value. The novella has already been heavily edited. However, between now and then, I will run through the text with a fine-tooth comb on a hunt for mistakes, while concurrently getting to grips with the mechanics of publishing on Amazon and designing a cover – the reason that my desk is currently occupied by a tea tray bearing a largish mound of sand.

Publishing on Amazon will allow me to set my own pace and maintain a steady and unbroken momentum. When I have finished working on a novella, or perhaps a collection of stories, I can publish and then move on. I think that is going to be a more fulfilling way of doing things as I always have a lot of projects on the go. The novella that is probably going to come after this one concerns a central African community who have put down roots in Hammersmith. That's in the advanced plotting stages – I have around 60 pages of character and chapter notes that I am beating into shape. I suspect that it will be probably end up being around 50000-60000 words.

The obvious drawback to self-publishing on Amazon is that you are wading into a crowded marketplace. The most-likely outcome is that I publish my book on the site, nobody is interested and it sits there unread until the end of time. That's still a step up from the alternative, where it sits on my hard drive, with a printed copy residing in the box under my desk.

Having the book out there makes sense psychologically, in that it frees me from endlessly revising the text and allows me to move on.

And, say, down the line, I do something that garners attention. The book is there, ready to go and I can point people towards it.

This plan is more about returning writing to the dynamic process that is used to be before I began submitting work for publication. It enables me to look forwards rather than backwards, allowing me to get as many of my ideas as possible down in writing, prior to sending them out into the world.